Re: [PATCH v1 1/2] pid: add pidfd_open()

Christian Brauner
2019-05-16T14:58:19Z

On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 04:56:08PM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> Hi Christian, David,
>
> On Thu, May 16, 2019 at 4:00 PM Christian Brauner <christian@brauner.io> wrote:
> > This adds the pidfd_open() syscall. It allows a caller to retrieve pollable
> > pidfds for a process which did not get created via CLONE_PIDFD, i.e. for a
> > process that is created via traditional fork()/clone() calls that is only
> > referenced by a PID:
> >
> > int pidfd = pidfd_open(1234, 0);
> > ret = pidfd_send_signal(pidfd, SIGSTOP, NULL, 0);
> >
> > With the introduction of pidfds through CLONE_PIDFD it is possible to
> > created pidfds at process creation time.
> > However, a lot of processes get created with traditional PID-based calls
> > such as fork() or clone() (without CLONE_PIDFD). For these processes a
> > caller can currently not create a pollable pidfd. This is a huge problem
> > for Android's low memory killer (LMK) and service managers such as systemd.
> > Both are examples of tools that want to make use of pidfds to get reliable
> > notification of process exit for non-parents (pidfd polling) and race-free
> > signal sending (pidfd_send_signal()). They intend to switch to this API for
> > process supervision/management as soon as possible. Having no way to get
> > pollable pidfds from PID-only processes is one of the biggest blockers for
> > them in adopting this api. With pidfd_open() making it possible to retrieve
> > pidfd for PID-based processes we enable them to adopt this api.
> >
> > In line with Arnd's recent changes to consolidate syscall numbers across
> > architectures, I have added the pidfd_open() syscall to all architectures
> > at the same time.
>
> > +428 common pidfd_open sys_pidfd_open
>
> This number conflicts with "[PATCH 4/4] uapi: Wire up the mount API
> syscalls on non-x86 arches", which is requested to be included before
> rc1.

Yep, already spotted this thanks to Arnd! Will change the syscall
numbers.

Thanks!
Christian

>
> Note that none of this is part of linux-next.
>
> Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
>
> Geert
>
> --
> Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org
>
> In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But
> when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.
> -- Linus Torvalds